Audience Growth Playbook

AUDIENCE GROWTH
PLAYBOOK
AUDIENCE GROWTH
PLAYBOOK FOR B2B PODCASTS
VERSION 1.0 — BY DAN SANCHEZ

LAUNCHING YOUR PODCAST
• Website
• Social Media
• Email
• Launch Campaign
EPISODE PROMOTION PROCESS
• Start with FIRE Content
• Podcast Syndication
• Podcast as Pillar Content
• Guest Sharing
• LinkedIn
• Paid Media
• SEO
Contents

LAUNCHING YOUR
PODCAST
LAUNCHING YOUR
PODCAST

LAUNCH 4
You launched your podcast! Now what?
While people can now ﬁnd your podcast on podcasting apps, it’s not
likely to get a lot of traction there if it can’t get found elsewhere.
So now that your podcast is live, let’s look at a few easy wins to at least
make sure your audience can ﬁnd it.
Growing Audience From the Start
sweetfishmedia.comAudience Growth Playbook

WEBSITE 5
Start With Your Home Base
Since your audience will likely subscribe and listen to your podcast from a
number of different apps and devices, it’s best to have a dedicated home for
your podcast where you can point people too.
That home is often a website and there are three types of websites that work
best:
• Company Website: Create a page or section of your website for the
podcast. Many create a whole category of their blog for podcast
episodes. (Example: https://bombbomb.com/podcast/)
• Content Site: If you have a separate website dedicated to content
already or would like to start one, consider making the podcast home a
section of that site. (Example: https://salesengagement.com/podcast)
• Dedicated Site: Some choose to create a whole site around their their
podcast. (Example: https://techtablespodcast.com/)

WEBSITE 6
Website Home Page
Include a link to your
podcast page in your
main navigation.

WEBSITE 7
Website Home Page
As well as in your
website footer.

WEBSITE 8
Website Home Page
It’s also ideal to
display your best or
most recent
episodes somewhere
on your home page
to draw people into
your site.

WEBSITE 9
Website Podcast Page
Podcast Title as
Page Title
Podcast Cover Art
Podcast Show
Description

WEBSITE 10
It’s always best to
have a way for
subscribers to have
a reason to
subscribe via email
to diversify the way
you deliver content.
Include links to social
platforms you will be
posting episodes to.
Include links to all
the major podcast
players.

WEBSITE 11
While it’s not always feasible to launch with
this in place, it is best to have a feed where
you can post the show notes (or full blog
posts) for each episode. These episodes
can then live on the podcast page.
In addition to having the episodes listed by
recency, it helps to have:
• A search feature
• Links to curated lists of related
episodes.
• Featured episodes you want them to
listen to ﬁrst.

WEBSITE 12
Website Episode Page
It’s always best to
include a graphic
card with your guests
photo to increase the
likelihood of of them
sharing it with their
audience.
The episode page
name should match
the episode title.
The photo and name
of host should be
included with a link
to see all the hosts
episodes and bio.

WEBSITE 13
Website Episode Page
The most important
part of the episode
page is to include
links directly to the
episode where they
can listen to it on
their preferred
podcast player
Include an audio
player for them to
listen to right there
on the page.

SOCIAL MEDIA 14
We highly recommend optimizing your hosts personal proﬁle in addition
to creating a whole company page just for the podcast for a few reasons:
• People would rather interact with people on social media
• Your host is already the face associated with the show
• People are more likely to tag and mention the show directly in a
mention rather than the company.
• LinkedIn does not favor company page posts
LinkedIn Profiles & Pages

15
LinkedIn Profile
It’s better to
introduce yourself as
a podcast host than
by your job title. It
shows people you
are a potential
source for exposure.
More people will
want to connect with
you as a result.
SOCIAL MEDIA
This is a free
advertising space
most people don’t
take advantage of
and it’s a great place
to let people know
about your podcast.

16
LinkedIn Profile
Create a job position
for the posthaste and
put this on the top of
your experience,
because people care
more about what you
can do for them
rather than what you
do for your company.
As a podcast host
you are a possible
avenue to reach a
new audience for
many people.
SOCIAL MEDIA

17
LinkedIn Podcast Page
Create a company page for your podcast,
so hosts can create a position that links
back to this page.
It also serves as a way for people to
@mention the show so that others can
easily ﬁnd a link.
While it seems like you should drive
audience to this page, remember that
LinkedIn doesn’t show posts of this page to
many people.
SOCIAL MEDIA

EMAIL 18
To kick off your podcast via email, you can do one of two things. You can
either, send a one time broadcast announcing the show with links to
individual show podcast players (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc) or you can
create a multistep drip campaign to introduce the podcast one piece at a
time (covered in detail on the next page).
If you go the path of of a single
• Subject Line: Tease why they should open.
• Graphic Header: Show your cover art in the context of where they
will ﬁnd the show.
• Body Copy: Describe why they should consider subscribing.
• Episode Highlights: Show them some of the ﬁrst episodes.
• CTA & Links: Include links to major podcast apps to subscribe.
Email Marketing

EMAIL 19
While you could make a big announcement by sending out a single
email and social post about your new podcast, it’s even better if you can
create a multi-part campaign to get the maximum exposure for your new
show.
Here is an example sequence:
• The Day You Commit to a Podcast: Tease the new podcast on
social. You don’t have to do anything other than say that you are
starting a podcast.
• The Day You Have the Name, Description, and Cover Art: Tease
on social media and email that your podcast is coming. Show them
the cover art and describe why they should check it out when it
launches. If you have a few guests lined up, ask the audience to
submit questions.
Example Launch Campaign
• Seven Days to Launch: Announce date and episodes to come on
social media.
• Launch Date: Announce the launch on social and email with links
to the podcast page.
• Next Day: Ask for ratings on the Apple Podcasts app from
employees, customers, and friends.
• Three Days After: Post early reviews to social media to celebrate
the show.
• Seven Days After: Tease the next guests and topics on social
media.
From here, you move to a regular episode promotion schedule.

PAID PROMOTION 20
If you have maximized your owned media, Facebook/Instagram Ads can
be a great way to accelerate the reach of the podcast.
Here are some audiences to consider creating in the  
Facebook Ad Platform:
• Upload a list of all the emails of prospect customers to run ads
against.
• Upload an email list of your customers and create a lookalike
audience.
• Install the Facebook pixel on your site and create a custom
audience of all the trafﬁc from the last 10 days.
Facebook & Instagram Ads

EPISODE PROMOTION
PROCESS
EPISODE PROMOTION
PROCESS

EPISODE PROMOTION 22
Each episode gives you a chance to talk about your podcast, so make
each post count. In this section, we will walk you through how to make
that happen so that you can have gain traction faster with your show.
Here’s a few tips to keep in mind regardless of the channel:
• Keep track of where people are clicking through to your podcast.
User a service like bitly.com or some other link tracker to ﬁnd out.
• Test out different post formats, ways of sharing the content, and
creative as you post. Each post is a chance to learn something new
about your audience.
• The more you post the faster you learn. If you want to grow faster,
post more.
Each Episode is an Opportunity

FIRE CONTENT 23
Your Content Will Only Go as Far as
its Quality Will Allow
Every episode is a chance to promote your podcast and grow your audience,
so each episode needs to be good. At Sweet Fish Media, we aim to make
each piece of content we make FIRE 🔥.
• Fun: The content is easy to consume, intriguing, and engages the heart.
• Informative: Our content empowers people to do today what they
couldn’t yesterday.
• Relevant: It matches what people are actually looking for or are
intrigued by.
• Extensive: The content goes deep but is easy to consume, it makes the
complex simple to unlock insights quickly.
While every piece of content should ﬁt the context of the platform, the more
you can bake in the elements above into your content, the farther it will go.

PODCAST SYNDICATION 24
There are dozens of podcasting platforms. Make sure your podcast can
be found on all of them. If you can only do a few though, the more
important platforms are currently:
• Apple Podcasts: The word “podcast” was coined by Apple when
iPods were still a thing and they still hold the largest audience base
of podcast subscribers.
• Google Podcasts: Google is the new kid on the block. For the
longest time you needed a third party app to subscribe to podcasts
on an Android device. Since Google controls search, this is not a
platform you would want to miss out on.
• Spotify: Spotify has been spending a lot of time and money
breaking into the podcast market lately and is gaining traction with
younger audiences.
• Stitcher: This app used to be the best way to subscribe to podcasts
on Android devices and still has a large audience.
Get Found On All The Podcast Apps

PODCAST AS PILLAR CONTENT 25
One podcast can be broken up into small pieces of content that, when
adjusted to make sense for the platform, creates great social media
content. This is how you get the most bang for your buck with each
episode you publish.
Each podcast episode can be turned into:
• A blog post
• Social media text update
• An image, gif, or meme
• A short captioned video
• A long form YouTube video
Pillar Content Strategy

GUEST SHARING 26
Each guest you bring onto your show has a following on social media. It
might not be large, but it’s something. They also work for companies that
may have larger audiences.
That makes it worth it to make it as easy as possible for the guests to
share the episode with their following, co-workers, and (possibly) their
companies social channels.
Here’s some tips to incentivize them to share:
• Make each episode makes the guest look like a rockstar.
• Send them a personal email when the episode goes live to thank
them and share the podcast player links with them.
• Write a post on LinkedIn to brag about their advice and tag them in
the post.
Getting the Most Out of Your Guests

LINKEDIN 27
While all social networks add value, for B2B marketers, LinkedIn is
where the money is. It’s more likely where your target audience hangs
out and consumes the content about your industry.
While we could fill this whole deck with just advice on LinkedIn, here’s
three steps we take to make ensure each post on LinkedIn stands out,
reaches the largest group of people, and drives more people to a each
podcast episode.
• Each post needs a compelling hook to stop people from scrolling
and tap the “See More” link.
• Each post has to deliver real actionable value in the post itself. It
can’t just tease the information in the episode.
• The link CAN NOT be in the post itself. LinkedIn’s algorithm will filter
it out if there is, so we create a CTA to check out the link in the first
comment below the post.
Podcasting + LinkedIn = Awesome

SEO 28
There’s multiple ways to optimize your podcast for search. By picking
the right name, you can get found in the podcast apps. You can optimize
your website with your podcast page and episodes to get found when
people search for you on Google (example to the right).
You can rank for industry keywords on Google by following these steps:
1. Create a list of keywords relevant to your industry.
2. Pick one of those keywords and ﬁgure out the intent behind the
search. Ask “what are they searching for?”
3. Craft questions that can draw out the answer.
4. Interview an expert on the topic related to the keyword.
5. Turn that episode into a blog post.
There’s a lot of little subtleties left out here, but that is the general
process. Let us know if you want help!
Search Engine Optimization

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